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A Bonus to Initiative


Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons? Ever wanted to? What's stopping you? Too much money? Not enough friends with free time? Too complicated? Not sure where to start? Relax! I have some firsthand knowledge that I'd like to share with you that will have you playing D&D with other people in no time!

Let's begin with an introduction: Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game developed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974. Since then, it has been the de facto standard for tabletop gaming, and a polarizing pastime of players and Dungeon Masters everywhere. D&D was acquired by Wizards of the Coast, the same guys who publish Magic: The Gathering, in 1997, and is currently in its fifth iteration.

5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D 5e, as it is known, is a stripped-down version of a game that had grown, in many players' minds, clunky and unwieldy. There are still adherents to the older systems, of course, but by and large, the 5th edition has been the best-selling edition of D&D in the franchise's history. It is viewed as the most accessible, intuitive, and easy-to-learn version of the game, and I can personally attest to its ease-of-use for beginners.

When I was a child, I loved the idea of Dungeons and Dragons, but since I grew up in the Bible Belt of rural Kentucky, D&D was "the devil" and was condemned as a gateway to devil worship and the wide road to hell. So, being a good kid and not wanting to go to hell, I stayed away from those devil-worshipers and didn't touch D&D. Not until I was almost 30 years old did the appeal of D&D rear its head in my life again. I decided that I was going to try and get my friends to play, since we were all adults and not scared of fantasy worlds condemning our souls to the abyss anymore.

This proved to be a very frustrating challenge, however, and I experienced my first hurdle as a Dungeon Master: corralling six adults into a single night of playing a game together. After repeated attempts and failures, I gave up trying to get everyone together, and put D&D on the shelf once more, convinced that I would never get to experience the stories and adventures that I had read about on forums and blogs. A few months later, I discovered Critical Role on YouTube. This, in no exaggerated terms, changed my life. Watching the group of "nerdy-ass voice actors" playing Dungeons and Dragons and having so much fun doing it made me decide that, come hell or high water, I was going to play this game.

I bought the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Player's Handbook, and once again tried to herd my friends into a session. This proved fruitless once more, but my wife became interested in the meantime. She approached me one evening and asked if I would be interested in running a single game for her so she could become familiar with the mechanics of the game. I readily agreed, and began working on a homebrew story for her. She rolled up an Elven Druid, and together we set out on a new adventure in the region of Telaris, heading towards the capitol city of Telim. From that first session, which lasted almost three hours, we have continued playing for the past two months. My wife was joined by my best friend, who became a Halfling Rogue Assassin, and the two have been forging their way towards vengeance, redemption, mysterious necromantic dealings, and endless possibilities!

What does this mean for you? Pretty much nothing, except that I went from despairing that I would never be able to play this game to running a game on my own and preparing to run a game at my local game store in the near future. This blog is designed simply to chronicle my adventures as a Dungeon Master, offer advice as I learn from my mistakes, and to encourage anyone with a desire to run their own game to do so. It can be challenging, it can be hard work, and it can be a bit overwhelming at first, but if I can do it, trust me: so can you!

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